What on earth happened to Jordan Rossiter?

When Rangers manager Graeme Murty announced Jordan Rossiter’s presence in the match-day squad to face Motherwell last weekend, reaction was faux shock and pantomime mirth from fans.

The sheer disbelief that the perennially-injured defensive midfielder had suddenly made the squad and would be included for the trip to Fir Park was almost amusing, but nevertheless all fans of a blue persuasion were surely delighted the youngster may finally have put his endemic injury hell behind him to make the squad at long last.

Only, when it came to the team announcement, the response was equally farcical. No Rossiter anywhere to be seen, either in the starting XI (not surprising) or the bench (very surprising).

A few punters joked he got injured off the bus, and we must admit at Ibrox Noise we are perplexed as to where the England youth international was, especially given Murty’s confirmation he, Ross McCrorie and Graham Dorrans would be part of the travelling squad. The latter two both made the bench or XI, but Rossiter was conspicuous by his absence.

There are a number of caveats to point out:

Equally absent from the bench were Eduardo Herrera, Fabio Cardoso and Jason Holt – this was the most dramatically changed bench for some time – more on that later.

Secondly, not every fit senior player makes the squad! The fit players will usually travel, but they do not all make the 18.

Thirdly, Murty elected for three defensive midfielders on the bench as it was – McCrorie, Goss, and the versatile Halliday.

Whether you agree with his selections or not, Rossiter’s absence from the bench, following effectively a two-year injury blight, isn’t that shocking even though he was passed fit.

Rossiter has a lot of competition now – Holt, Halliday, Docherty, Goss, Jack (eventually) et al are a heck of a lot of depth, and the ex-Liverpool man has a lot of work to do to prove he’s fit enough to handle the rigours of match day and a lot of players to prove he should be ahead of.

We like this kid a lot – his infectious personality and grin and big heart make a fit Jordan Rossiter an extremely worthwhile asset. But he has effectively lost two years of his career and has a tonne of making up to do to get back into the first team picture.

He’s a fine player, who still has so much potential, but Rangers have spent more money on his treatment down the years than have received in returns on the pitch.

And time will tell if he has the stomach to dig in and get himself back in contention. We hope he does.